Beilue: High school sports coverage ends Wednesday

JON MARK BEILUE

Monday

Mar 31, 2014 at 10:15 PM

As far back as the worn dusty files of the Amarillo Globe-News reach, high school sports have been a staple. Even when it seemed to speak a different language, like this headline in 1927: "Amarillo Is Doped To Win Bulldog Tilt," high school sports held sway.

Neighbors vs. neighbors. Schools vs. schools. Towns vs. towns. It was often the common fabric that stitched the Texas Panhandle together.

Often, if not always, sports staffs at this newspaper have poured all resources possible to cover football playoffs, big basketball rivalries, five different sports played on a windy spring afternoon, the colorful coaches, the outstanding athletes.

That includes chronicling the dynasty of Blair Cherry's Amarillo High Sandies football teams in the 1930s to the Joe Lombard Canyon girls basketball powerhouses eight decades later. And a whole lot in between.

How many Super Teams have been printed on these pages? How many all-district teams have been published? Hundreds and hundreds, no doubt.

Everything, though, must eventually end. And that means, sadly, coverage of high school sports. Beginning Wednesday, the Globe-News will halt coverage of high school sports. It could be temporary, meaning a full year, but it may be longer.

Really? Oh, you better bet your bellyaching kiester, sister.

At the heart of this decision is after decades, the Globe-News frankly has had enough. I heard it for 25 years when I was in the sports department. They heard it 50 years before me. Sports Editor Lance Lahnert and his cohorts hear and read emails about it constantly.

Petty bickering, charges of favoritism. Constant whining that their team gets no coverage while fill-in-the-blank gets "front-page pictures and stories." It gets old and usually comes with the territory. But the territory has changed.

Rest assured, this decision wasn't made lightly. AGN Media President Les Simpson, who has heard his share of complaints via phone and in-person, ultimately handed down the edict.

"I would just simply say the times are changing, and our industry is facing tumultuous times," Simpson said. "We have to now pick and choose the important things to cover.

"Let me be clear - while high school sports may be of interest to some people, we just decided it's not worth the grief we have to take from parents of the tiddly-wink team no one cares about demanding that their tiddly-winker be on the sports front every day of the week."

For Lahnert, the transplanted Coloradoan who's worked in the sports department for nearly 32 years, axing high school sports is a tough, but necessary move.

"Obviously, I have had a passion for high school sports," he said, "but not to the point where I'm getting phone calls at 6 a.m. wanting to know what it's going to take to get some powerlifting regional tournament results in the paper."

Overzealous parents and overreaching booster club presidents, doctors said, have contributed to his third outbreak of Shingles, a painful viral rash.

Last football season was the tipping point, Simpson said, to halt coverage.

"Some parent called, and I won't give the name of the school, and said, and I quote, 'I always knew you liked them better than us because they have 17 more words in their game story,'" he said.

"Do you believe that? I've been mulling this decision for a long time.

"At some point, I would have changed my mind if just one person would have come to me and said, 'My school and child get plenty of coverage, but could you give more coverage to our arch-rival and their quarterback?'"

Yachting is just one sport that will now get increased coverage in the absence of high schools. So, too, will curling, Jai-alai and donkey basketball.

"Jackasses' parents don't complain," Lahnert said, "so there's that."

On or about next April, Globe-News brass, along with corporate officials at Morris Communications in Georgia, will determine if high school sports coverage will resume or if the moratorium will continue.

Knowing that we like to stay in business, and avoid rioting at our building, there's a good chance readers haven't seen the last of high school sports.

Even if hell froze over. I'd say there won't be any reduction. Just remember today's date and put together the first letter of these 24 paragraphs and - oh, come on, you smelled a rat by now, didn't you? Still, if you want to tone down the charges of favoritism, the sports department and publisher would be much obliged.

Jon Mark Beilue is a Globe-News columnist. He can be reached at jon.beilue@amarillo.com. or 806-345-3318. His blog and video blog appear on amarillo.com. Twitter: @jonmarkbeilue.

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